


Snake Venom

by dmonfoxriot



Category: Zero: Shisei no Koe | Fatal Frame III: The Tormented, 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù
Genre: Crossover with Fatal Frame/Project Zero games, Horror, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:41:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25253260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dmonfoxriot/pseuds/dmonfoxriot
Summary: Jiang Cheng’s sleep has not been easy since he was a fresh faced child walking into the Cloud Recesses for the first time.
Relationships: Jiāng Chéng | Jiāng Wǎnyín/Lán Huàn | Lán Xīchén, background WangXian
Comments: 26
Kudos: 55





	1. Chapter 1

Jiang Cheng will never admit to weakness, even with a sword to his neck. So it is a surprise when Sect Leader Lan appears at his doorstep, with a serious expression on his face and questions about his sleep.

Jiang Cheng’s sleep has not been easy since he was a fresh faced child walking into the Cloud Recesses for the first time.

“It is a curse from Dongying.” Sect Leader Lan says as soon as they’re alone, floating beside the lotuses in what used to be his mother's pavilion. Jiang Cheng sits stiffly across from Sect Leader Lan, tense as he always is these days. Lan Xichen sips at the offered tea more for something to do with his hands than anything else, divine though it may be. Finally he pulls a scroll from the sleeve of his robe and offers it to Jiang Cheng.

“Why do you bring this to me?” He snaps, pushing the offered scroll to the side.

“My brother has seen you there.”

Jiang Cheng’s heart stops. His body language shuts down even further and he leans back as if Lan Xichen had just struck him.

“My brother has shown me the bruises on his arms, his legs. Curse marks in the shape of snakes and holly flowers side by side. Please, Sect Leader Jiang, let me help you!” Xichen pleads, hands up as if Jiang Cheng is a startled beast who needs calming.

 _‘Aren’t you though? A beast who killed his own brother?’_ Golden poison whispers in his ear, the bruised tattoos slowly consuming his body pulsing under his clothes. Xichen must see something in his face because he keeps talking.

“Please! This curse will kill you if you keep following the ghost further into the mansion.” He pleads, hands reaching out to his fellow sect leader. Lan Xichen doesn’t even flinch when Zidian sparks weakly, trying one vain to defend her dying master.

Jiang Cheng curls over the table with a choked curse, hands nearly tearing his clothes as the tattoos on his back send waves of pain through his body. Sharper than anything he’s felt before.

Jiang Cheng understands now why Zidian is so weak in the waking world. Why he's always awakened by a sharp shock before he can follow that laughing figure through the final door. Why the cursed tattoos retreat from her sparks when they hurt him just as much. Zidian, the last thing he ever received from his mother, has been keeping him alive.


	2. Chapter 2

_Jiang Cheng stood in blackness, ears straining to hear a sound that wasn't there. He flinched when something cold brushed his face, and realized that he’d had his eyes closed. He opened them and gazed up confusedly at the snow that didn’t fall in humid, hot Yunmeng. He’d only ever seen snow visiting the Cloud Recesses. His eyes fell from the sky, tracking a random dancing snowflake, only to catch upon a house._

_It wasn’t a house he’d ever seen, the architecture was foreign and sprawling and nothing but shades of white from the snow or grey wood he had never seen before. He wanted to look behind him but found he couldn’t, could only look at this house in front of him._

_He blinked and suddenly there was a man standing in front of him, at the very entrance to the house._

_“Wei Wuxian!” he snarled, but his adopted brother didn’t turn around. Simply walked into the strange house and closed the door behind him._

_Jiang Cheng found he could move and dashed towards the door to slam it open. He jerked back when he found a woman behind it instead of his brother, grimacing at her body that was covered in painful looking tattoos. He stumbled back, and was met with a solid wall instead of the open door he expected._

_The woman, groaning in pain, reached for him and her sharp nails pierced his chest._

He came awake, gasping and clutching at the point on his chest that she’d touched but there was no sign of the wound he felt.

\-----

Jiang Cheng said nothing as Lan Xichen talked, told him of things he already knew from a different perspective. Lan Wangji had followed his- Wei Wuxian into the same strange looking manor. Had even produced a sketch at his brother's request and Jiang Cheng didn’t need to look at it to know.

“It is supposedly a rare curse, passed between those who dream of each other. Or… dream of the same person.” Lan Xichen said, still seated at the table sipping tea. As if he hadn’t just shattered Jiang Cheng with one small revelation.

Wei Wuxian wasn’t really there. Wasn’t haunting him for everything that had gone wrong because Jiang Cheng was a horrible brother, a worse person.

It wasn’t him.

“It started at a temple in Dongying that opened its doors every winter to receive those who had suffered. They took the suffering of those who came and embedded it into the skin of their priestesses in the form of sacred tattoos. Something happened and the temple vanished from the mountain, and began showing itself to people in their dreams. The stories all end the same, the person who has dreamt of it grows unable to stay awake, and eventually vanishes.” Lan Xichen paused, staring at the unmoving back of the Jiang Sect Leader.

“That explains the woman.” Jiang Cheng muttered, and why he couldn’t seem to stay awake anymore without interference from Zidian.

“Wangji said he was pursued by a woman with snake and holly tattoos.” Lan Xichen offered, hoping to pry more out of the unmoving man. Lan Xichen’s shoulders slumped just the tiniest bit when Jiang Cheng didn’t respond, only continued to spin Zidian around and around his finger.

“It was said the temple was connected to the land of the spirits.” Lan Xichen mused with a wistful look on his face.

Sect Leader Jiang contorted with a scream of pain and Lan Xichen almost leapt over the table to catch the thrashing sect leader. He gasped when he saw the beginnings of the same tattoos he’d seen upon Wangji’s arm spreading up Jiang Wanyin’s neck, inching upward towards his face. Wicked looking snakes and black holly flowers the colour of rotten blood inching upwards with every moment. They seemed to seep under his skin like water, leaving vivid bruises in their wake.

Zidian’s power suddenly ripped through the both of them, caring not about catching Lan Xichen in the crossfire as she drove the curse back. Jiang Cheng screamed now from the lightning coursing through his veins. Lan Xichen gasped in silence before the both of them collapsed in a heap.

\-------


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this took a serious left turn into Horror. Just a warning.

Lan Xichen blinked awake in a place he had never been, with snow falling gently to rest on his hair. He felt no cold, but he felt no warmth either. His robes were warmer than the robes of Yunmeng but there was no cold to feel, even with the snow falling.

He turned in place, gazing out into the silent darkness in confusion. What had happened? He’d been sitting by the lake with Sect Leader Jiang - something sparked on his hand and he flinched backwards, stumbling on snow that made no sound underfoot.

He brought his hand up and was stunned to see Zidian there on his finger, glinting in the dark when she should be with her rightful master.

“Zidian?” he asked, his voice absorbed by the blackness around him so intensely that the sound barely escaped his lips.

_Go....away!_

He whirled around wildly, looking for the source of the voice that seemed to be both a scream and a whisper all at once. Zidian sparked again, and Lan Huan grunted when one of the tiny motes of purple struck his cheek. The purple light drove the darkness back, and he gaped up at a mansion he was familiar with from his brother’s sketches and maps. It towered and sprawled at the same time, both bigger and smaller than he had pictured it, confusing in it’s mismatched design. Lights flickered on and off in the rooms at random, screams rising and fading away as he stared, entranced.

“The Manor of Sleep?” he was distracted from his confusion when he saw a familiar figure in purple rushing through the doors.

“Sect Leader Jiang!” he called, but got no response from the fleeing figure. He ran after his fellow sect leader, but the paper screen door slammed in his face and the voice sounded again.

_GO… AWAY!_

“I refuse! You cannot have him!” Lan Xichen banged his hands against the door, trying to force it open. Ghostly arms appeared through the door and pushed him violently back, there but not there in the same way as the door. They were solid and strong as they pushed against his chest, but he couldn’t touch them and felt shivers pass up and down his spine when his own arm swept through them.

_GO AWAY!_

“I refuse to leave him!” His arm drew back as if possessed and Zidian crackled angrily before he slashed through the door with her purple lightning. The ghosts holding him back scattered before Zidian’s might and Lan Huan rushed past them into the mansion itself.

Once inside the mansion colour seeped back into the world, turning greys into deep browns and dark blues. The voices became much easier to understand, and a haunting lullaby sent shivers down his spine as it echoed through the halls. He felt no cold though the snow was melting in his hair, and he felt no warmth from the candles dotted along the walls. Just a chilled breeze that brushed across his face and hands every now and then.

He wandered the mansion, taking in the details of the various rooms as he went. Some were elegant rooms in the Dongying style, lavish in ornamentation. Others were little more than crumbling ruins, with black water and vermin throughout. Out of the corners of his eyes he kept seeing flashes of movement, that revealed nothing when he turned to look. Once he caught sight of a little girl peeking around the corner at him before she vanished into thin air.

Occasionally he had to drive ghosts back with Zidian when they tried to block his path. He felt sorry for the poor souls trapped in this horrid place and tried to exorcise them gently, but the bruises that formed on his neck when one of the stronger ones caught him there quickly disabused him of that notion. Zidian cut through all of the ghosts like a sword through cobwebs, banishing the weaker ones to the afterlife and chasing the stronger ones away. Walking through the mansion he heard the whispers of the deceased, even if he didn’t see them.

_I won’t let you go._

He meandered past innumerable graves and wondered if they were the graves of the ghosts who haunted the mansion or if they had followed the mansion into the sleeping world. He felt a wave of sadness at their unkempt state and wondered how long it had been since they were tended.

_Come back._

He drifted further and stumbled upon a room with a cage hanging from the ceiling. It seemed peaceful enough for him to take a short break and so he sank to his knees gratefully. The second his knees touched the floor a whisper seemed to come from the cage, growing louder and louder until it was a chorus of howling pain even though it was empty. The screams and sobs of the cage scared him in ways nothing had since he was child, goosebumps and shivers wracking his body as he fled, slamming through random doors to escape the noise.

_Where… did you go?_

He felt pursued as he ran, thundering footsteps following just behind him until he crashed into another room. He hugged himself for a moment, trying to regain his shattered calm. Sinister giggling replaced the screams and he closed his eyes, hoping that whatever this new horror was would pass him by. He felt a presence press close to him and he slit his eyes open to come face to face with the little girl he’d seen earlier, with three others pressed against her back. He flinched back when a menacing smile stretched across her face, yet refused to strike at them with Zidian.

_Help me._

He finally chased away the four little girls who seemed determined to stake his feet to the floor and knew he would have nightmares after he escaped this place. Their delighted laughter took on a terrifying echo as it filled the hallways behind him, causing the hair on the back of his neck to stand.

_Come back._

Rooms filled with straw dolls impaled to the wall offered a small respite until the giggling handmaidens chased him away, stakes and hammers in hand. He almost sighed in relief when he finally left the disturbing handmaidens behind, and the lullaby returned to haunt the hallways.

_Don’t go!_

He came upon rooms with blood soaked ropes and grimaced as he trod upon them, feeling them squelch underneath his feet like offal. The smell of the rotten blood choked him as he tried desperately to escape the grasp of the ones dripping from the ceiling. They seemed to sway and reach for him as he stumbled through the room. 

He threw himself desperately at what he thought was a door and nearly panicked when it turned out to be a mass of bloody ropes that clung to his arms and threatened to drag him in, even with his prodigious arm strength. Only the power of Zidian freed him from the ropes and allowed him to find the actual door, the sparks chasing the clinging ropes back to reveal it. He slammed through it into a hallway that seemed normal, until he saw the shapes of people in the mold on the wall and the smell hit him so hard he nearly puked. Rotten flesh and soaked wood choked his senses until he managed to stumble away from that section of the mansion.

_Don’t leave me!_

Eventually he stumbled upon a door he had seen in Lotus Pier, starkly out of place among the foreign architecture of everything else. He pushed through it with relief, hoping to find himself somewhere at least vaguely familiar.

While the hallways were indeed a familiar layout, the details were off. The water he could glimpse was an eerie, thick black that couldn’t be seen through and no lotus flowers bloomed anywhere.

He finally caught glimpses of Sect Leader Jiang again, and pushed his exhausted body into a run, yet seemed to get no closer to his quarry. Left turns turned into right turns and vice versa until he was panting in frustration.

“Sect Leader Jiang!” he called, but his voice again was eaten by the darkness pressing in around him. The water lapped loudly at the wooden building, just past the wall. He was glad he couldn’t see it, for that endless black threatened to swallow him whole, given the chance.

“Jiang Wanyin!” He tried again, and the darkness retreated. He looked around but still couldn’t find any trace of the man he was looking for. Cold, clinging mist that ignored his thick robes and soaked his hair had begun to crawl along the floor, blanketing everything in a dull white.

“Jiang Cheng!” he cried, desperate now to find him and escape. Zidian roared to life on his hand, and thunder boomed next to his ear, making his head ring with the sheer force of the sound. But when he opened his eyes, the mist had been driven away, and a way forward presented itself.

It was the same pavilion he’d been having tea with Jiang Cheng on earlier, when he’d arrived, yet this counterpart to the one in the waking world was eerier. Instead of a peaceful scene set against the mountains, surrounded by beautiful lotus blossoms, it now sat on the black, devouring water. That same creeping, enveloping mist hung thick as a curtain over the lake, blocking Xichen from seeing anything past the pavilion. Dead and rotted flowers swirled past on invisible currents, blanketing the area with their sweet, fetid scent. In the distance he saw tiny lanterns with flickering light, but felt afraid to stare at them too long for some unknown reason.

He could barely see figures sitting in the pavilion around the light of a blue candle, shadows that flickered in and out of his sight when he blinked. Three figures had the perfect posture of high blooded cultivators and one lounged indolently, shadowed hand brushing against the black water.

Walking toward them, stumbling as if intoxicated was Jiang Cheng, and Lan Xichen knew if he reached that pavilion no one would ever see the Jiang Sect Leader again.

Adrenaline surged through his body and he sprinted down the walkway, reaching out to catch Jiang Cheng’s arm and haul him around. Jiang Cheng snarled and thrashed in his hold, reaching desperately for the figures just ahead in the pavilion. Lan Xichen wrapped his arms around the struggling sect leader and held on for dear life, praying that Jiang Cheng’s thrashing wouldn’t tip them into the water.

One of the shadows stood from the feast-laden table in the centre and moved towards them. As it passed the threshold of the pavilion, the figure became Jiang Yanli. She was as beautiful as she had been on her wedding day, dressed in elegant robes with her hair done perfectly, with a too perfect smile on her face.

“Sister!” Jiang Cheng cried as if his heart was shattering, reaching for Jiang Yanli and desperately trying to escape Lan Xichen’s hold.

“Come, A-Cheng. The food is ready,” the spectre said, in a voice that was too perfect, with a smile that was too wide. Jiang Cheng’s struggles became rougher when this false Jiang Yanli extended her hand to them both, beckoning for the two men to join them in the pavilion.

“It’s not her! Jiang Cheng, please! It’s not her!” Lan Xichen panted, as he dragged Jiang Cheng back, inch by agonizing inch. The further they got from the pavilion the more the water rocked the floating walkway, and the closer the mist crept. Finally when they had reached the halfway point, the visage of Jiang Yanli flickered to reveal the twisted face of the tattooed woman.

_GIVE HIM BACK._

“Priestess please, let him go.” Xichen begged, still throwing all his weight into pulling Jiang Cheng away. Jiang Cheng went limp as the pavilion faded away into the mist until they stood in an unfamiliar cavern, tiny candles providing light that barely cut through the mist that had closed in around them.

Behind the tattooed woman where the pavilion had once been stood a chamber, doors thrown open and framing her. Inside Xichen could just barely glimpse countless bodies, other tattooed priestesses pinned by the same stakes the little handmaidens had tried to use on him. He shuddered and dragged Jiang Cheng’s limp form as far back as he could get.

When he had tucked the dazed cultivator into the doorway he turned to face the tattooed priestess. Zidian roared to life again, reaching for the source of the curse that had dared to touch her master.

\-----

Jiang Cheng woke from a daze, jolting back to himself as he tried to get his bearings. He was sitting on a beach, a white line in the distance denoting the horizon the only thing breaking up the darkness besides a small line of floating lanterns.

He saw Lan Xichen slumped against a boat not far away and scrambled to his feet, dashing over in concern. His feet sank into the sand and he nearly fell, but he kept his feet with some ungraceful movements and reached the boat in short order.

“Lan Xichen?” he called softly, reaching out his hand to lay it on the shoulder of the one he wished to consider a friend. The robes were soaked and Lan Xichen was shivering, though with cold or exhaustion Jiang Cheng couldn’t tell.

“Ca-call me Lan Huan,” Lan Xichen said, glancing up at Jiang Cheng with a weary smile.

“What? Are you hurt!” Jiang Cheng shouted, only now taking in the state of his fellow cultivator. His forehead ribbon was streaked with unknown substances, his robes torn, discoloured and disheveled and his face showed nothing but exhaustion. Lan Huan shook his head wearily and tried to gain his feet, but couldn’t until Jiang Cheng threw the other man’s arm over his shoulder and pulled him up.

“Help me… help me send them off,” Lan Huan said, with a weak gesture at the boat. Jiang Cheng finally looked at it and blanched, afraid of the tattooed woman curled around the body of a man nestled in the bottom.

“Just… send them to the other side,” Lan Huan said, resting his head against Jiang Cheng’s, as if he couldn’t hold up his head any longer. Jiang Cheng settled the exhausted man back on the sand and did as he was asked, pushing the boat out to drift on the water. The lanterns gathered at the beach seemed to trail behind the boat of their own volition, and it spooked Jiang Cheng back to Lan Huan’s side. He glanced over in surprise when Lan Huan’s tired voice raised in a haunting song.

“Go to the other side. Go to the other side. Cast the boat, take a ride, cross the rift to the other side. Further and further to the other side, it must sail bearing your tattoos and our offering of tears.” 

Jiang Cheng gasped when tears started running down his face, as if they had been holding themselves back for the song. He covered his face, trying to hide his weakness from Lan Huan.

“A-Cheng,” a voice called. A voice he never thought he’d hear again. 

Jiang Cheng looked up and there stood his two siblings, lost to him on the same day. Both had gentle, if sad, smiles on their faces and stood knee deep in the water. All around them shadowed figures waded through the water, following the boat and it’s trail of lanterns.

“We have to go, little brother,” Wei Wuxian said with a mockery of his usual bright grin, tears streaming down his face too. Only Yanli wore a gentle smile, one hand on Wei Wuxian’s shoulder.

“Don’t leave me! Take me with you!” Jiang Cheng cried, sloshing into the water with great strides. The cold water seemed to push him back, fighting his progress toward his siblings. Something caught his ankle and he tripped, barely catching himself above the surface. Jiang Yanli’s gentle hands pulled him back to his feet and he threw himself into her arms with a sob.

“Don’t leave me…” he begged, holding his sister with a death grip. Her hand on his cheek made him look up at the both of them where they floated in the water that was pushing him back.

“You can’t come with us, A-Cheng. Who will look after A-Ling?” Jiang Yanli’s voice teased as she pressed a kiss to his forehead. Wei Wuxian’s hand came up to cup his other cheek and Jiang Cheng felt heartbreaking sobs tearing out of his throat, and he didn’t try to stop them.

“Who will look after him?” Wei Wuxian asked, directing Jiang Cheng’s gaze back to Lan Huan on the beach. Jiang Cheng’s heart lifted, impossibly, when he saw the man dressed in white sitting there waiting for him. Lan Huan waved a tiny wave, and smiled a tiny smile.

Jiang Cheng gasped in startled pain when he felt the snake and holly tattoos on his skin begin to slide up to his face and down onto the arms of his siblings. When Jiang Cheng was relieved of that ache that he’d carried for so long now he let out a sob of relief, seeing it glowing on his siblings without hurting them.

“We love you, little brother,” Jiang Yanli said, before turning and following the procession behind the boat, Wei Wuxian one step behind her as they walked.

Jiang Cheng collapsed beside Lan Huan on the beach, both of them exhausted as they watched the procession until it was finished.

“Let’s go home,” Lan Huan said, and Jiang Cheng smiled and nodded.


	4. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Here's a little epilogue to hopefully clear up some stuff from the fatal frame side of things. Also! This epilogue brought to you by all the awesome comments I got!!!! Thank you (in particular yanqho and oryctolagus) and just so you know I come back and scream in happiness over all the comments you've left.

Jiang Cheng came awake with a sob, tears streaming down his face, and gasped when arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders to pull him into a firm chest. He recognized the feeling of Lan Huan’s arms, and threw himself into the comforting hold.

“They’re gone… they’re gone…” He kept sobbing, fingers twisting hard into the fine silks on Lan Huan’s back. Lan Huan kept rubbing circles into the grieving sect leader’s shoulders, doing his best to ease the pain of three year old wounds bleeding anew.

They sat there until the sun slipped behind the distant mountains, bathing the view Lan Huan would never like again in reds and golds and eventually to blacks that sent shivers down his spines that had nothing to do with the dropping temperature. In the time it took for Jiang Cheng’s heart shattering sobs to fade away to exhausted sniffling, Lan Huan’s legs had long gone numb and he’d dismissed concerned Jiang Sect disciples numerous times.

“Are you ready to go inside?” Lan Huan asked gently, urging the exhausted Jiang Cheng to sip at their long cold tea. Both of them were shaking with exhaustion, and surprised to find they had only sat in the pavilion for a handful of hours. In the realm of sleep it had felt like days.

\-------

Once they were settled in Jiang Cheng’s quarters, with fresh clothes and hot food, they finally got around to discussing the curse in detail. Lan Huan watched as Jiang Cheng pieced himself together enough to become the experienced night hunter again.

“The curse, as I told you, recently took hold of Wangji and that is what brought it to our attention. He is the reason I came here, to ask you about your experiences with the affliction,” Lan Huan explained, offering the tossed aside scroll he had brought with him that detailed his brother’s thankfully limited experience with the Manor of Sleep. Jiang Cheng took it this time, and Lan Huan was charmed by his intense look of concentration as he skimmed it.

“We found only a single account in the forbidden section of the library. A cultivator from Dongying who visited our sect many generations ago, who described the curse and its origin as much as he could before he vanished,” Lan Huan said, startling when Jiang Cheng’s head snapped up, his eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“Vanished? He didn’t die?” Jiang Cheng asked, though Lan Huan took no offense to his brash tone. They had been through too much in too little time for him to take any of Jiang Cheng’s harshness seriously.

“No, he vanished from the healer’s room and left nothing but a black soot stain behind. His case lasted eighteen days, and he said it took most people quicker. He reportedly only wished for the Lan healers to ease his pain as he approached his end, and to warn us of the curse itself.” 

Jiang Cheng’s face did something odd, and Lan Huan focused on it with interest.

“...I was cursed for six months.” Jiang Cheng whispered into his tea cup, not looking up into Lan Huan’s shocked face. Lan Huan’s hand reached across the table and caught Jiang Cheng’s where it held the scroll.

“Truly? Oh, Jiang Cheng, I’m so sorry,” Lan Huan felt his heart breaking to imagine Jiang Cheng entering that place every time he slept, and understood why Jiang Cheng had seemed more and more sleep deprived every time they passed by each other these last few months.

“I don’t want to talk about it. Tell me about the temple this curse came from,” 

Lan Huan’s gaze went distant then as he looked out Jiang Cheng’s window and onto the lake. It shimmered beautifully beneath the light of the moon, but Lan Huan still shivered in fear at the thought of black water.

“Our visitor told us of the nature of the temple, to take the pain of grief from any who came to them. They did this by tattooing the grief onto the skin of their priestesses, who came to the temple when they had lost everyone they loved. They accepted the pain of others until they could not handle any more, and were laid to sleep for eternity in the bowels of the temple itself. One such priestess was Kuze Reika, the tattooed woman we met, and her ceremony of sleep went wrong. You see, she had made the mistake of falling in love,” Lan Huan’s gaze turned very sad, and Jiang Cheng’s gut clenched.

“She fell in love?” Jiang Cheng prompted gently when Lan Huan didn’t continue.

“When Zidian and I drove the darkness from her, cleansed her of her pain, I saw her memories. I lived her life in a split second. She lost her whole family in a flood, but her lover had gone and she never expected him to return. So she came to live in the temple as a priestess, and accepted the grief of others. The priestesses were supposed to abandon all emotion, but she could not let go of the small sliver of love she still had for that man. When she had accepted all the pain she could she was laid to sleep for eternity with her sisters, but her lover snuck into the temple and disturbed her rest,” Lan Huan paused, to take in a fortifying breath before he continued.

“The temple mistress caught and killed him for trespassing, right in front of her. So when Reika’s lover was struck down before her eyes the grief overcame her, flooding the temple with pain and cursing it.” Lan Huan’s tears overflowed and he finally wept for the poor young woman whose life had been so full of pain in all forms. Jiang Cheng felt pity for the tattooed woman who had haunted him, and dropped the scroll to cling to Lan Huan’s hand while the other man wept.

“So the body of the man in the boat with her…” Jiang Cheng trailed off, unsure if he should ask. Lan Huan nodded, scrubbing at his tears as he tried to regain control of himself.

“Her lover. Once she had been cleansed of her pain and the both of them sent to the spirit world together the curse was broken. Now her sisters sleep peacefully in that room, hopefully never to be disturbed again.” Lan Huan said, praying that he was right and that they would sleep on. Jiang Cheng noticed that Lan Huan’s energy was flagging and leaned over the table to lay a hand on his arm and steady him.

“That’s enough for today. We must rest. You can return to Gusu tomorrow to check on your brother,” Jiang Cheng tried to be reassuring, but only felt awkward as he tried to rub soothing circles into Lan Huan’s arm.

“C-can I stay here tonight? I’m afraid my sleep will not be peaceful. Seeing you alive and well will help,” Lan Huan asked, mortified to be asking and terrified he’d be rejected.

“I will wake you from your nightmares, if you will do the same for me,” Jiang Cheng said with a rueful smile, and Lan Huan felt his spirits lift when he saw it.

“Always,”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline goes like this: 2.5 years after wwx dies jc contracts the curse, 3 yrs after wwx dies lz contracts the curse, one week after that lxc turns up in yunmeng and breaks the curse, freeing both lz and jc. So yes! Lan Zhan is cured as well. Lan Huan and Jiang Cheng bond over the experience and are married 5 years after wwx died.

**Author's Note:**

> For real tho come scream at me on tumblr @ dmonfoxriot
> 
> Made some p heavy edits to chapters 1 and 2. The plot bunny is gone, so this is the end! Thanks for reading :D


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